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Food and music build bonds at this weekend’s Lord of the Wings festival

Beth McCandry

  1. Music
  2. Local Arts
  3. foods
  4. festivals

Saturday on ReMax Field’s patio will see a full day of bands and plenty of chicken wings to bring people together

Scott Putnam (left) and Lord of the Wings festival co-organizer James McCormick.Scott Putnam (left) and Lord of the Wings festival co-organizer James McCormick. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia

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In Italy, pasta is the dish that binds the community.

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Borscht is ubiquitous in Ukraine, while ramen stalls throughout Japanese cities are testament to that dish’s enduring popularity within the island nation. Meanwhile, Scott Putnam of local hot wings and music festival Lord of the Wings asserts that wings are the dish we as Canadians bond over.

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“Food brings people together,” the local promoter says about the second year of the festival, which takes place all day Saturday on the patio of Re/Max Field, “and I’ve loved chicken wings since I was six years old. But this festival isn’t just about wings. In this case, coming together as a group for chicken wings is a kind of a metaphor in a weird way, because it’s also about community.”

Putnam has been incubating the ever-evolving plan for Lord of the Wings for a few years now, initially thinking of it as a city-wide wings competition culminating in “one wing to rule them all.” Like many such ideas, Lord of the Wings was battered by the pandemic and left in stasis until last year, when Putnam and his friends brought together a number of bands and food trucks for a series of small shows at Re/Max Field. It was a tentative step in the direction that Putnam wants to go, and it proved that people are equally enamored of both salty bar snacks and music in an outdoor setting.

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This year’s edition of Lord of the Wings, again on the patio at Re/Max Field, will be repeating the same eclectic combination of bands, just in a more concise single-day form. The idea of ​​a wing competition has been pushed into again the future, with only Darkside of the Grill providing the tasty morsels of chicken meat. The festival will also continue to play into Putnam’s fascination with all things Tolkien, to the point of sub-billing it as The Fellowship of the Wing.

“It’s an extremely diverse bill, from Indigenous artists to world music to funk to rock and roll, punk to soul,” Putnam explains about the lineup, which ranges from folk-punk headliners Fire Next Time to afro-fusion act Melafrique, quirky New Orleans-style marching band Brasstactics to indie rockers Bad Buddy and beyond. “It’s for everybody, just like in Lord of the Rings. When they started the Fellowship they had elves and dwarves, they had men, wizards and hobbits from all walks of life. That’s how I envision this; it’s a big community and we want everyone involved and to feel as comfortable as possible.”

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Putnam and his associates are also connecting to local charities to further the community aspect of the festival. This year they’ve partnered up with Wings of Providence, an Edmonton-based organization that offers a safe landing spot for women and children escaping domestic violence. The organizers of Lord of the Wings have promised to set aside a certain amount of profits for the charity.

“That’s just one example of an organization we want to work with as we continue to grow,” says Putnam. “I want to work with a lot of organizations in the future. Like, if a youth within the arts and culture scene doesn’t have enough money to get a guitar, maybe we could help with that. Or if they need music lessons, we can point them in the right direction, ideas like that.”

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Putnam acknowledges Lord of the Wings is still feeling some growing pains, but he doesn’t lack vision for the future. He’s hoping next year they’ll be able to move onto the Re/Max Field itself and set up a wings competition that both the public and a “panel of wing experts” can vote in. All that’s needed is for Edmontonians to show a little love to the festival this year and pack it out.

“It also depends on that and how many sponsors and partners we get,” says Putnam. “It could change overnight. We want to have an impact on our community, and we want to make a difference. I guess I just want to say that what we’re trying to do is bring extreme positivity to the industry here.”

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PREVIEW

Lord of the Wings

With Fire Next Time, Brasstactics, Bad Buddy, Son of Dave, Melafrique and more

When Saturday, 12-10:30pm All ages

Where Re/Max Field, 10233 96 Ave.

tickets $38.15 in advance from Eventbrite

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